Mumbai Attacks - Why Kassab Was Hanged

Posted by Aneela Shahzad
on January 22, 2015

26/11, 2008, Mumbai, India was struck by a deadly multiple strike, shattering the integrity of this giant country and putting a grave question on the security system of ‘Shinning India’, a country aiming at putting its claim as a regional power.

Our heartfelt sympathies for the people of Mumbai, who since March 1993, have lost at least 527 lives and have had more than 1700 injured in about 7 detestable terror attacks, many of them being multiple attacks, including the ‘Bombay Bombings 1993’ and the ‘Railway Bombings 2006’. The inability of the Indian government to investigate, conclude and counteract, and a failure in providing adequate security measures for this metropolitan hub of the country, eventuated in the 26/11 dilemma, bringing an end to 164 more Mumbai lives and injuries to 308.

A country whose economy is being projected as taking leaps in the near future by the western forecasters, a country that asserts to be the biggest most stable democracy of the world, so stable and mighty that its neighbors should accept it as their regional leader in the near future, how can it not ensure the safety of its own people. The responsibility of the lives and well-being of the Mumbai people falls back to the Indian government, unless it is habitual at being tardy in its police, intelligence, judiciary and internal security machinery and reclining only on one instrument; the blame-game.

It seems that India relied heavily on this instrument of blame to stir the national and international perception against its arch-enemy Pakistan, forgetting that the people of India truly deserve justice more than baseless propaganda. The Indian government proved its dis-concern in the security of its people by allowing an un-obstructed space for terror outfits to loom around when Mumbai had been attacked so many times before in recent years. The Indian government deliberately altered the investigative findings to fit their political agenda, ignoring the legal right of the bereaved upon reality, and when it found itself in a wishy-washy situation, with no solid proofs of anything, it again resorted to lies and blames.

The proof of all this is merely the fact that Ajmal Kassab was dealt with in highly secretive manner. The Pakistani side that kept a cool stance amidst all the negative cries of Indian high-officials in international fronts, cooperated with India, so that truth could be gotten to. Pakistan jailed 7 possible suspects of the Mumbai attacks on behest of the Indian government and started the trial, but ultimate evidence and witnesses of the crime lay on the other side of its borders. India was repeatedly reminded of the collaboration required from its side to proceed with the trial; it was offered that either those who had interrogated Ajmal and had collected first hand data of the crime scene be sent to Pakistan to present their finding to the Pakistani court and reply to their queries OR that a team from Pakistan be sent to India, to collect required info from Ajmal or the first-hand interrogators and investigators. But as both kinds of arrangements were made, India proved its ill-intention; the delegation which Pakistan sent was denied access to Ajmal or the magistrate who had taken Kasaab’s statements or the doctors who had treated him or had taken autopsies of the other terrorists.In the same way the delegation that was arranged to arrive from India was formed of newly set members.

And amidst the on-going trial, which has been carried forward by Pakistan to prove its commitment in the War on Terror and to satiate India’s arousing of international pressure for Pakistan’s cooperation; what has India done? India has effectively pronounced the hanging of the lone-witness of a major terrorattack on its nation. What good does a dead Ajmal Kassab bring to this trial and how does his death serve justice to the bereaved of the dead and the bewildered of a nation.

Ajmal Kassab’s hanging was no longer India’s personal matter, in the War on Terror we are all equal stake holders, Pakistan is equally terrorized and disgusted, Pakistan wants the truth too. As India had the nerves to hurl Pakistan as an abettor of Terrorist around the globe, having global powers to put the pressure of ‘do-more’ upon our authorities, many time forcing them to apologize and re-ensure them in media; it is cowardice and immoral of it to step back like this.

It is immoral to involve another state in one’s own negligence, distort its image in the global society, force it to go an extra mile in its internal judicial process, and when all this is going on you hang that guy and end the trial on your side. It is immoral to be unable to extract any credible info from Kassab when he is in your custody and beset Pakistan to fish for his effects back in this country. The court’s verdict that has come in press was the likes of the following:

“The court held Kasab, 23, individually responsible for seven murders and together with his accomplice Abu Ismail, responsible for 66 other killings on the night of November 26, 2008 when they went on the rampage from CST to Cama Hospital and Metro Junction to Chowpatty. He was also held guilty for abetting and conspiracy in the murders of the remaining 166 victims who died at the Taj, Oberoi and Trident and Nariman House. Calling Kasab’s crime the “rarest of rare”, the judges said they had no hesitation in awarding him the death penalty for the “brutal, grotesque and diabolical” murders… There is hardly any scope for a person like Kasab to be rehabilitated or reformed.” The 26/11 attacks had caused damages to the tune of over Rs 150 crore, noted the court.” (Source: Times of India; Feb 22, 2011)

These verdicts of the court show that Kassab’s individual crimes were proven but the court did not find who was at the back of all this. The Mumbai Trial was not a trial of one man, it was a trial of Terrorism,the victim was a country the accused were internationally set terror outfits, so how can its verdict encompass only one man, is that justice? OR is that a verdict upon the incompetent investigative and fact-finding abilities of India, or a verdict upon India’s belief that whoever was behind the Mumbai Attacks does not end up in Pakistan?

The inability of the Indian government to investigate, conclude and counteract, and a failure in providing adequate security measures for this metropolitan hub of the country, eventuated in the 26/11 dilemma.